Ten Years in Washington: or, Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. GarfieldClemmer, Mary
History
Ten Years in Washington: or, Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. Garfield
Clemmer, Mary
Washington (D.C.) -- Description and travel; Washington (D.C.) -- History
When it reaches the Treasury, the work yet to be done by the Printing
and Engraving Bureau, before the paper is complete as Government money,
is to print the face upon the United States notes, and hereafter, on the
National Bank notes, to plate-seal, to number, trim, and cut them into
single notes; to trim, surface-seal, and cut into single notes the ten,
fifteen, and twenty-five, fractional currency notes; to print the face
of, trim, surface-seal, and separate the fifty cent notes; trim,
surface-seal, and number the “funded loan bonds;” to trim, number, and
surface-seal, the national bank notes; and to print the faces upon all
the tints for internal revenue-stamps, already printed in New York.
Besides all this work, the following are entirely engraved and printed
in the Bureau of the Treasury: All strip-tobacco and snuff-stamps, stub
and sheet snuff-stamps, domestic and customs cigar-stamps, compound
liquor-stamps, crew lists ships’ registers, brewers’ permits, all the
new special tax-paid stamps, (sixteen in number,) all miscellaneous
bonds, gold notes, checks, drafts, etc.
When this precious paper, with its black and green lines and tints,
fresh from the Bank Note Companies, arrives at the Treasury, it is
placed into the hands of thirty young ladies for counting, one lady
counting it twice, then passing it to another, for verification.
The next act in the process of making a dollar, is the manufacture of
the plates used in printing. They are made in the engraving division of
the Bureau, under the supervision of Mr. Casilear, a gentleman
distinguished in his profession, who presides over a corps of the finest
engravers in the country. Their work upon the plate of the United States
note, is the engraving of its different parts. First, the face which it
is to bear. This is always noticeably a perfect likeness of the person
whom it represents. A daguerreotype or photograph is used. On the
metallic plate of the daguerreotype the features are drawn lightly, the
artist following accurately the lines of the portrait. If a photograph
is used, gelatine is laid over it, and the picture is traced. From this
outline on the plate, an impression is printed. This impression, by a
chemical process, is transferred to a steel plate covered with wax. The
outlines are then traced on steel, the wax removed, and the face, in
outline, is then on the steel. The shading is then completed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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